Toward sustainable optoelectronics: solution-processed quantum dot photodetector fabrication using a surgical blade

Abstract

Fabrication of optoelectronic devices relies on expensive, energy-consuming conventional tools including chemical vapor deposition, lithography, and metal evaporation. Furthermore, the films used in these devices are usually deposited at elevated temperatures (>300 ° C) and under high vacuum, which necessitate further restrictions on the device fabrication. Developing an alternative technology would contribute to the efforts on achieving a sustainable optoelectronics technology. Keeping this in our focus, here we present a simple technique to fabricate visible photodetectors (PDs). These fully solution-processed and transparent metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) PDs employ silver nanowires (Ag NW) as the transparent electrodes replacing the indium-tin-oxide (ITO) commonly used in optoelectronic devices. By repeatedly spin coating Ag NWs on a glass substrate followed by the coating of zinc oxide nanoparticles, we obtained a highly conductive transparent electrode reaching a sheet resistance of 95 Ω / □ as measured by the four-probe method. Optical spectroscopy revealed that the transmittance of the Ag NW-ZnO films was 84% at 450 nm while the transmittance of the ITO films was 90% at the same wavelength. Following the formation of the conductive film, we scratched it using a heated surgical blade to open a gap. The scanning electron microscope images indicate that a gap of ∼30 μm is opened forming an insulating line. As the active layer, we drop-casted red-emitting CdSe/ZnS core-shell quantum dots (QDs) onto this gap to form a MSM PD. These visible QD-based PDs exhibited responsivities and detectivities up to 8.5 mA / W and 0.95 × 109 Jones, respectively at a bias voltage of 5 V and wavelength of 650 nm. These proof-of-concept PDs show that the environmentally friendly, low-cost, and energy-saving technique presented here can be an alternative to conventional, high-cost, and energy-hungry techniques while fabricating photoconductive devices.